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His words were soft, modulated as ever, but he slammed the door before stalking to the driver’s side.
I smiled faintly as I tipped my face up and glanced through the windshield at a cobalt sky, not a rain cloud in sight, not a wisp of fog, just stars glittering like diamonds on dark velvet. I’d gotten a slam out of him. A stalk. Tension ratcheting up in his body as he passed through the headlights. Life was good.
When he slid behind the wheel and started the car, the deep sexy purr of the engine was drowned out by a sudden blast of ear-shattering music, especially to someone who hears as well as me. The bass was so loud it nearly vibrated me out of the seat.
I knew that song. I loved that song.
I’d danced to it. A lot. I flushed.
Heart. The line currently blasting: I cast my spell of love on you, a woman from a child.
Magic Man.
I scowled thunderously, fisting my hands. Ryodan and his damn spells. Was that what he’d done to me? Was that why I was always so bloody confused around him? Because I didn’t really love him, he’d just made me think I did? I frowned. Wait, what?
I was so not looking at him right now. I stared straight ahead.
“I like it loud,” he said as he turned the volume down. “One of my favorite songs.”
He was not allowed to have that as one of his favorite songs. It was mine. Still staring straight ahead, I gritted, “How constantly did that caveman of yours watch me?”
“Why?”
Teeth clenched, I spat, “?‘Magic Man.’ I dance to it. A lot. Like, naked. In front of a wall of windows. Up high where you don’t expect people or nonpeople to be lurking about on rooftops, spying on you without your knowledge or consent. How constantly?”
Ryodan was silent a long moment. Then tightly, “That fuck said nothing about you dancing.”
I glanced at him. The words had come out guttural, thick. Fangs fully distended, he was the one staring straight ahead now. Hands so tight on the wheel his knuckles were white. After a long moment he rasped, “Lor wouldn’t have stayed to watch.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can. He may have seen you begin. But I assure you, he didn’t stay.”
I narrowed my eyes, studying him. He was employing one of my tactics, relaxing his fingers one at a time, modifying his breath, forcing himself to regain control, fangs slowly retracting. Copycat. “What makes you so sure?”
“We may walk like humans. But we are far more beast than man.”
“Your point?”
He didn’t say anything for so long, I was on the verge of writing it off as one more question the great Ryodan would never deign to answer.
“Sex is the beast’s greatest hunger,” he said finally. “More so than blood. More even than war. It is its greatest obsession and also the thing capable of affecting it the most deeply.”
“Level four. Sex for breakfast.”
He inclined his head. “Had Lor stayed to watch, his beast would have taken control.”
“So, what? I wouldn’t have done anything with him.”
“Consent wouldn’t have mattered. You’re not as powerful as he is. As we are.”
I bristled at the reminder. I was acutely aware of it, every bloody moment of every bloody day. “You’re telling me Lor, my Lor, who is always good to me, would have—” I broke off. “I’d have used his own club against him. Lor and me, we don’t feel that way about each other.”
“Lor is beast first. We all are. Never forget that. Never underestimate it. We have our limits. We do what we must to manage those limits and minimize fallout. With the exception of Barrons, none of us permit the beast to run wild. It does things we don’t want it to do. With deadly consequences. Ergo, the moment you began to disrobe, Lor would have left. He cherishes you. Protects you. Calls you his little honey.”
“Are you telling me the Nine can’t see a woman naked without turning into a beast and assaulting them? That’s lame. What kind of superhero has that kind of problem?”
He made a sound of choked laughter. “Ah, Dani, only you would call us lame. Superheroes constantly battle an inner darkness, a hunger to cast off all chains. It took Christian Bale to give us an authentic Batman. It was about bloody time the world pulled its head out of its ass and gave us a gritty, complicated version of the Bat who could champion the things that mattered, not the bloody use of seat belts, doing your homework, and eating your fucking vegetables. Champions don’t spring from happy childhoods. They explode from tortured ones with a mile-wide dark streak they’ve learned to use for good. Superheroes aren’t perfect and they’re usually their own worst enemy. Yes, we can see women naked. It takes the addition of an extreme on top of it to cut the beast loose.”
